lajimi:Fark-the-Fnord: Dancin_In_Anson: lajimi: I don't much care for $4.00+ a gallon gas and these greedy bastiges jumping the price whenever they feel like it.

Then don't buy it.

Oh I was not aware that they taught complex economics such as that in Douche bag school. You must have studied hard.

Douche bag school? My, aren't you clever! Well those of us at the Douche bag school are waiting to hear YOUR ideas, come on, someone as clever as you must be overflowing with ideas. We're waiting.

/A real wit//Well, half of one

What it sounds like is that there is a spinning wheel of blame that the media points out every time that this issue comes up,and it comes up a lot. First it is the oil companies and they are the ones to blame because they are getting these record profits, lets blame them. But wait!! It looks like it is not them that is running up the prices, it is the refineries, OK no problem lets let the oil companies off of the hook and go after the refineries. The refineries are saying, no it is not us you guys need to look at the speculators, they are the ones driving up the prices.

I think all three are getting rich and they have the media in their pocket to get the American people to keep chasing their tails at who to blame for high oil prices so we do not go and tar and feather them. Of course we would not be able to go and tar and feather them because tar is made from oil and no one can afford a barrel of oil.

One of the best things to do is to get cars that run off of electricity and to make mass transit systems more available in smaller cities. Every small city has a larger city nearby which has an established mass transit system and a lot of people that live in the smaller city or its suburbs probably commute to the bigger city. It would be a lot more efficient to put high speed rail to connect every major city in the United States and then also to have rail going from the major city down to its smaller cities.

On top of that we need to embrace nuclear power more. Once these things are in place then we can go ahead and stop using oil. It is not an acceptable answer to just stop using it, there has to be a viable solution in place. Not everyone lives within biking distance of their job.

mod3072:So, the key to lower gas prices is to use less and curb demand, because prices go up when demand is high and supply is low. At the same time we need to use more because prices go up when demand is low and supply is high. So if demand goes up 20% and down 20% at the same time and supplies stay high, gas prices should drop because demand is up and supply is up and demand is down and supply is up, right? Am I doing it right?

Think about it this way: YOU don't control pricing, THEY do. And they'll raise prices whenever they think they can. The only recourse is to increase your personal efficiency to minimize their pricing impact.

A tale of two traveling salesmen where I work: The company reimburses a flat rate per mile driven. Salesman A drives a Durango. When gas hit $4/gal he was sweating bullets because it was now costing him money to do his job. Salesman B drives an Accord. When gas hit $4/gal he still came out ahead, just less than when it was at $2/gal.

The whole gloating at people who bought efficient vehicles when gas was cheap missed the point. If you don't consume much fuel to begin with, you don't care whether gas is $1/gallon or $4/gallon. It's not like somone who uses only a gallon of gas a week is screwed if gas prices drop*. OTOH if you drive an F-350 to a job in the city when you live 60 miles out in the exurbs, the moment gas prices double you're feeling a white-hot rod up the ass.

*I must note the Prius is not a good way to save gas. It's a nice car but it's a high-end sedan, not an economy car. If you want to save gas on the cheap, buy something like a Ford Focus or Honda Fit or, better yet, consider a motorcycle or bicycle depending on your local traffic.

You know not what inelastic means.The mere fact that quantity demanded has retracted significantly *after* the price went way up says that it in fact is not inelastic.

Granted gasoline may have a *higher* inelasticity than other goods, but to categorically say it is "an inelastic good" given what has happened the last 8 - 10 months is just patently wrong.

Look kid. If you're going to try to debate economics with an adult, at least actually know economic terms.

The short answer to your post is you're an idiot and have no clue how economics works at all.

The long answer is that just because price goes up and people buy less, that doesn't make a good elastic. You seem to completely have misunderstood what I wrote. Price goes up, but demand does not drop significantly because people still need or want the product, in this case need. They may drive less often, but they don't drop their consumption in the same way they would for another, more elastic good.

Yes gas is an INELASTIC good. To say anything otherwise is simply not correct. Please see the above paragraph if you still don't understand. I'm guessing you don't because you didn't the first time. It's ok, economics is hard, stupid people just can't understand it.

Cup_O_Jo:As of yesterday. The car companies biatched they will not be able to sell the new fuel efficient cars unless gas prices are 4 dollars a gallon again. SO-testing in one to three.../wonders when I turned into a female Dale Gribble.

DETROIT -- AAA Michigan says gas prices have dropped three-tenths of a penny over the last week, putting the statewide average at $3.86 a gallon.

The state auto club said Monday that of the cities it surveys, the cheapest price for self-serve regular fuel is in the Saginaw/Bay City area, where a gallon costs $3.81. The highest average can be found in the Marquette area at $3.96.

Mad-n-FL:We already have laws against price gouging during national emergencies.A declared war (even on on "terror") is a national emergency.

Why have we not yet prosecuted the oil industries CEOs?

Because they are above the law.

Cup_O_Jo:As of yesterday. The car companies biatched they will not be able to sell the new fuel efficient cars unless gas prices are 4 dollars a gallon again. SO-testing in one to three.../wonders when I turned into a female Dale Gribble.

Where did they say that? Why did they say that? It doesn't really make sense.

Tavernknight It was ALL over the place. ALL OVER. Car companies were saying we can make what ya want but how are we going to sell it. So there were all these financial papers saying the strategy to selling cars that do not need gas is to raise gas prices. It might have been Forbes who quoted a GM CEO as saying such. It was yesterday. I will find a citation for you if I can stop feeling like crap./has the flu or a cold

"Profits are at record highs, so not so regretfully, we've had to raise prices." After all, triple-chinned Oil Execs need new yachts and homes in Monaco.

We're already closing in on $3 a gallon here in Southern California, I just saw a sign at a local Shell where regular was $2.79. Granted, we're getting extra hosed here in California by our utterly worthless state legislature. For instance, a few weeks ago, I filled up at the local Exxon for $2.45 for mid-grade, then drove to Yuma. Mid-grade at the Arco in Yuma was a full 40 cents cheaper, per gallon. The price at that Exxon has gone up nearly 30 cents a gallon since then, and it's one of the cheaper stations in the area (cheapest in OB seems to be the Arco, but its within 5c/gal of the Exxon, but they nail you 45 cents to use your debit card, where Exxon does not.

Thankfully, I'm about to put my motorcycle back on the road and shorten my daily commute to about 5 miles round trip, so I really don't care anymore.

GoodyearPimp:lajimi: I don't much care for $4.00+ a gallon gas and these greedy bastiges jumping the price whenever they feel like it.

Why wouldn't they *always* feel like it?

Same reason you cook a frog by gradually increasing the temperature. All at once, the frog has imminent cause for action and will hop out of the pot. Slowly, and he adjusts to each incremental increase until he dies.

Of course, in this case, there's no where really to jump but into another pot, and the oil companies control the politicians with the "lids" to those pots anyhow.

CowboyNinjaD:Shadowknight: Dancin_In_Anson: If you like the postal service, you'll love nationalized oil.

I know. I hate such efficiency that they can get insane amount of personal and mass mail delivered with nearly 100% efficiency and within the promised time limit six times a week.

You can argue that they could easily go down to four times a week, but if you want to argue government inefficiency the post office really isn't where to look for it. For all the jokes about the post office and it's laziness, they really do an amazing job for the amount of post they need to move every freaking day.

It's not his fault. He's just making the typical, cliche, anti-government argument.

Like people who argue against a national health care system by comparing it to the DMV. You know, I've been a licensed driver since 1996. I think I've only had to go an actual office two or three times. I went once to get my temporary license and another time to take my test and get my real license.

Then I moved to another state in 2003 and had to physically go to an office to get my picture taken for my new license. Other than that, everything has been through the mail or over the Internet.

So yeah, the DMV, a true model of inefficiency.

But OMG they have LINES there. A HUGE one. A LINE!! I mean really, they should anticipate that EVERYONE will show up on their lunch break and just have like 50 people who work there for 2 hours a day, 7 days a week so there are no lines. THAT's efficiency.

starfliz:NaziKamikaze: Dancin_In_Anson: Bukharin: Is there a better way to send a sheet of paper cross country for 40-something cents?

No, but there are ways that are profitable and don't require massive government subsidy.

Why should the postal service be profitable? It should do what it does satisfactorily and on budget. It's not a business, but it's necessary to a nation.

because if they are not profitable then they are stealing my money for something I don't want and could be better served by privatization. Lets pay to have a service that feeds the ducks. hey.. 'its providing a service'! Really, the biggest problem is how the laws block privatization now.

Headso:yeah and don't buy any food or goods where oil was used in the production or shipping. problem solved the "conservative" way.

Well, when gas was over $4 we changed a lot of things that reduced our expenses to offset the increase. Funny thing was we actually spent less when we started paying attention to the details of where the money was going.

Bukharin:"The U.S. Postal Service concluded fiscal 2005 with a net income of $1.4 billion on record revenue of $70 billion and record volume of 212 billion mail pieces."

These threads are always a good way to see all the farkers who have not even the slightest Idea of how markets work. You have a very important commodity, volume available has not gone up much at all in recent years. Demand remains high and always goes higher in the summer. And yet the price goes up and they biatch and moan and engage in their three minutes of hate at the "greedy" oil companies.

Meanwhile, nearly every other major industry has higher profit margins and has raised their prices more than the oil companies in the last ten years.

/But its all OK Farkers, If you don't like the energy prices now, just wait till cap and trade.

http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/CA6653670.html"On the supply chain and freight side, revenue was down 19.8 percent at $1.75 billion, while operating profit was down much more at 64.6 percent at $40 million."

Reality. Profits are down, but not negative.They are doing ok.

Lets stay on the topic you originally brought up about the USPS not being profitable and requiring "massive government subsidy."

This may have been said, but I'm way too lazy to read through everything...

Oil has gone up. Is there a reason for it? Nope. It just goes up and down.

Refineries have to buy oil to REFINE into a finished product such as gasoline and diesel. Input (oil) goes up - output (gas) goes up.

Also, this is Atlanta - home of low sulfur, low RvP gas. It's ALWAYS high in Atlanta, because IT COSTS MORE TO MAKE THE GAS.

Final lesson of the day - yes, it's summer, so the price is going up, because demand is going up. It just so happens that gasoline is one of the few products that costs more to make (more strict RVP regulations in warmer months) at the same time that demand goes up.

OK.. These rising prices are nothing more than speculation coming into the futures market AND exceedingly low refinery output. If you look at the above tables, LAST YEAR at this time most areas of the country had MORE supply of refined gasoline than they do today.

Let me say that again, at $4 a gallon, there was more refined gas than there is currently, when there is over 100 million barrels of oil AT sea on tankers. Meanwhile refiner's are in the low 80% capacity, and likely even lower with this weeks "fires".I don't agree with nationalization, but this

This is CRAP, Suddenly this week two refinery fires, Nigerea goes Ape shiat again, and another country declares "force majerie". This is nothing more than creating an artificial supply shortage to increase the bottom line.

OK.. These rising prices are nothing more than speculation coming into the futures market AND exceedingly low refinery output. If you look at the above tables, LAST YEAR at this time most areas of the country had MORE supply of refined gasoline than they do today.

Let me say that again, at $4 a gallon, there was more refined gas than there is currently, when there is over 100 million barrels of oil AT sea on tankers. Meanwhile refiner's are in the low 80% capacity, and likely even lower with this weeks "fires".I don't agree with nationalization, but this

This is CRAP, Suddenly this week two refinery fires, Nigerea goes Ape shiat again, and another country declares "force majerie". This is nothing more than creating an artificial supply shortage to increase the bottom line.

Doubt anyone will read this info, this far down in the thread tho..

Some of us are slow readers.Apparently there are a lot of slow learners out there.Big oil owns the world body and soul.You keep threatening their domination and you will not like the resultant social conflict, financial pressure tactics and military actions instigated to preserve the strangle hold on THE MONEY.

Dancin_In_Anson:They lost $2.8 billion last year. That is not profitable no matter how you slice it.

And no, they haven't received subsidy, I was wrong. Let hope it stays that way.

Listen dude, many companies lost last year. Even a casino loses once in a while.

You are trying to suggest the USPS is a soviet boogyman instead of the good example of working privatization it is by counting quarters of lost pennies and ignoring years of gained dollars.

You can quit gracefully or continue barking to the wind at someone in a more appropriate time zone. If you actually cared on this subject, you might try doing your own research and seeking carefully information that contradicts your preconceived ideas. Google is a good start, but a local or university library would be better.

jfsimpson:Most of the people in this thread are very stupid with a few exceptions (like FZ6).

Thanks! :)

Oil companies do not equal refiners. Oil prices do not equal gasoline prices. Oil demand does not equal gasoline demand.

Less demand for gasoline = refiners cut back production = lower profit margins per gallon produced = raise prices on gasoline to maintain profit margins.

The cost of oil accounts for roughly one quarter to one half of a refiner's total cost. So if oil were free, your gasoline would still be in the $1-1.25/gallon range.

There will be none of that logic going on here.

Ha - all kidding aside, I think people forget that even when gasoline was in the $1.50 range, the government was taking roughly a third of that in taxes. Actually, a little more. It's just amusing to me how little people know (or care to know) about how this stuff actually works, yet they feel the need to really, really complain about it.

Want something to complain about? Go yell to your Congressman about the new Renewable Fuel Standard bill that just came out. The expectations are ridiculous, and the burden on refineries is insane. All of this nonsense about "energy security"? Like Hell. It's just going to make it to where some of the refineries in the states have to shut down and the US has to import gasoline - yeah, that's helping.

Oh, and by the way - right now the EPA is trying to make a motion (thanks Carol Browner!) to put E-15 on the market. The kicker about that? Most cars won't be able to handle the change in oxygen levels. And it's going to screw things up such as (but not limited to): certain motorcycles, boats, other marine watercraft, snowmobiles/dirtbikes.

But yeah - it's the evil people giving us gasoline to get to our jobs every day. Makes sense - let's regulate the hell out of them to a sick amount (to the fact that under the even more ridiculous carbon credit system, refineries are only going to be alloted 2% of the credits) to where they have to shut down and more American jobs are lost.

"Oil is freaking hard to find, you know. We've been looking. And the spots we're finding it are three miles below seabeds or in wartorn countries. We've spent billions. And we've been finding less, year-on-year, pretty much since Eisenhower was in office. We've been pumping more oil than we've been discovering on an annual basis, worldwide, since the early 1980s. This is a problem. Meanwhile, thanks to global de-leveraging, we're having a hell of a time getting enough money to go chasing those amazingly obscure and expensive small pockets of oil that are left. Yes, we made billions in the last few years. And gave most of them to our shareholders. Because, if we didn't give them 15% annual returns, they would have taken their money to Bernie Madoff or invested in mortgage-backed securities."